Kennedy’s Group Loses Anti-Vax Suit Against Meta

PolitiFact reports:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled in favor of PolitiFact and its parent organization in a lawsuit filed by Children’s Health Defense, a legal advocacy group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Aug. 9 ruling affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a complaint brought by the Children’s Health Defense against Meta Platforms and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The lawsuit also named the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, PolitiFact’s owner and publisher, and Science Feedback, another Meta fact-checker.

The lawsuit alleged that PolitiFact blocked the group from displaying the article on its Facebook page, and more generally that it collaborated with Facebook and government and international entities — including the World Health Organization, the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — “to suppress vaccine safety speech with a ‘warning label’ and other similar types of notices which, while purporting to flag misinformation, in reality censor valid and truthful speech, including content posted by (Children’s Health Defense) on its Facebook page regarding vaccines.”

Children’s Health Defense “failed to allege any facts” that showed an agreement between the federal government and Meta on addressing misinformation about vaccines, the court said.

Circuit Judge Eric D. Miller, who was nominated by then-President Donald Trump, wrote the majority opinion.

“Meta evidently believes that vaccines are safe and effective and that their use should be encouraged,” Miller wrote. “It does not lose the right to promote those views simply because they happen to be shared by the government.”

Kennedy’s anti-vax group reacts:

CHD’s suit accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies of “privatizing” the First Amendment by teaming up with Facebook to censor speech which, “under the Bill of Rights, the Government cannot censor.”

Children’s Health Defense is extremely disappointed by the 9th Circuit’s decision. If we cannot stop the government’s joint action with Big Tech to censor unwanted information, our First Amendment is a pyrrhic victory — it means almost nothing in our real world of social media.

Insert sad trombone gif.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in PolitiFact’s favor in a lawsuit filed by Children’s Health Defense, an organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The organization sued Poynter following a fact-check about the flu vaccine. https://t.co/zz25IqWg0P

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) August 13, 2024